CHENNAI: Triathlete Anu Vaidyanathan of Bangalore, has created a rare record of being the only Indian to take part in the three-day Ultraman Canada Championships in Canada recently.
The event includes, a 10 km swim, 150km bike ride on day one, then 270km ride on day 2 and 84.4 km run (double marathon) on the last day. The temperatures was close to 40 degrees on all days but Anu, against all odds, became the sixth woman and the youngest finisher to complete the Ultraman event.
“I am very proud of my achievement and even though the lowest point of my day was the end of the race when I was in the emergency room for three hours with three liters of IV pumped into my body The whole city of Penticton has been an excellent host and even though I had the worst crew and wanted me to quit on day one, I didn't listen to them and kept moving on,” said Anu.
“While thousands of people take part in Ironman races, only 60 people or so have completed an Ultraman. I am honoured to be in this group and thank my primary sponsor Devashish Paul, an Indian who lives in Ottawa, Canada for paying my entry fee to this race, which was well beyond my affordability,” added Anu.
Twenty-seven-year-old Anu is the CEO of PatNMarks, a Bangalore-based company that offers patenting solutions and intellectual property management services. She gets little institutional support and trains without the sort of infrastructure competitors abroad enjoy.
Earlier she had finished 24th amongst the 12,500-odd participants at the Auckland Half Ironman in March. “I attribute my success to my mother. She encouraged me all year to start and I even finished, said Anu.
